


happy, happy birthday baby

by phae



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, A little angst, Birthday Fluff, But mostly fluff, Fix-It, Happy Birthday Clint Barton, M/M, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 00:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phae/pseuds/phae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Phil was there to celebrate Clint's birthday, and the one time he wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	happy, happy birthday baby

**Author's Note:**

> A belated post for Clint's birthday, June 18th. Title is from Dolly Parton's _Happy, Happy Birthday Baby_.

Clint didn’t have a lot of happy memories from before his parents died. He didn’t really have a lot of ‘em _after_ they died either. But that's mostly because he and Barney got stuck in a shitty orphanage where the adults stopped caring years ago and the other kids were just as angry as Clint and Barney were. And the circus had it’s moments, but they were always kind of outsiders there, and they didn’t bother sticking around long enough to really become part of the family. Then they were living on the streets mostly, committing minor felonies up and down the East coast.

One happy memory he did have, though, was of his fifth birthday. There had been a chocolate ice cream cake that his mom bought at the grocery store with _Happy Birthday_ scrawled unevenly in purple icing. His mom put a single candle in the center and lit it with her cigarette lighter, and Barney didn’t even try to shove him out of the way so that he could blow out the candle and steal Clint’s wish.

The day didn’t stay happy, of course. The few happy memories Clint could recall from back then were always ruined the same way: his dad, a bottle of whiskey, a heavy fist flying towards his face.

But Clint still held on tight to the memory of that cake with it’s one cheap candle. Once they joined the circus, Clint would convince Barney to cover for him on his birthday so that he could sneak off to the store to buy a cake with the little he’d scraped together from change that missed people’s pockets and got left behind in the dirt to be kicked around by the crowd. He’d head somewhere quiet, stick a single candle in the center, light it, and sing _Happy Birthday_  to himself. Barney had rolled his eyes the one time Clint invited him to join in, so Clint never asked again.

Clint was only with SHIELD a few months when his birthday rolled around. He was still under light surveillance and technically restricted to headquarters until he got bumped up from likely-flight-risk to probie agent status, but it was easy enough to slide through the duct work and sneak out to the closest bakery to buy a cake. He didn’t tempt fate by staying out the whole day like he would have back at the circus, but instead smuggled his cake back to his small quarters on base.

He’d just struck a match and lit the purple candle when there was a knock on his door. Clint eyed the candle, debating whether to blow it out or not. He hadn’t thought of a wish yet, but he didn’t want wax to drip and pool in the buttercream icing while he dealt with whoever was there to nag him.

With a frown that was probably more of a pout, he blew out the candle with a huff and pushed off the bed to open the door enough to stick his head through.

 

Agent Coulson stood in the hallway outside his door, looking his usual mild-mannered self, but there was a vaguely stern set to his mouth.

 

“Sir?” Clint greeted him with a confused tilt to his head. As far as his understanding of SHIELD went, Coulson was going to be his handler once he finished jumping through hoops for the agents in charge of new recruit training, but he hadn’t seen the unflappable agent much since he brought Clint in; mostly just in passing or in the base cafeteria.

 

“Barton,” Coulson nodded. “Any particular reason you left HQ via a sixth floor window a few hours ago?”

 

Clint could  _feel_ the blood drain from his face, it happened so fast. Yeah, he wasn't so big on following orders and all the restrictions that SHIELD seemed to have in place for him specifically, but all the bullshit he had to put up with from SHIELD was much preferable to being back on the run from some shadowy mob figures. If Clint managed to blow his one shot here over a fucking _birthday cake_ , he might just let the mobsters catch up to him once he was back on the curb, ‘cause seriously, his life wasn’t likely to amount to much after this.

 

Clint tried to work some saliva back into his dry mouth, but he wasn't so successful. Coulson continued to stand there, and when a minute passed with no explanation from Clint, he raised a single eyebrow.

 

“I—I didn’t mean—I wasn’t—” Clint stammered out before giving up with a sigh and stepping back to open the door and let Coulson see inside, where the cake with rainbow sprinkles stuck out prominently in his Spartan room.

 

Clint wasn't sure what reaction he should have anticipated from Coulson, but he sure as hell didn’t expect Coulson’s kind-of-angry face to morph into his kind-of-amused one.

 

“Next time you need to go off base for something,” Phil said with his almost-smile, “Swing by and give me a heads up? You can still sneak out if you want. It’s always good to keep the building security on their toes.”

 

Clint raised his hand to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly. “Yes, sir.”

 

Coulson reached into his pocket and pulled something out, extending his arm to hold it out to Clint. It was some kind of key card, and Clint took it from him hesitantly, asking with a flick of his eyes from Coulson to the card what it was.

 

“That’ll give you 24 hour range access. Please note, that does not mean that you can spend 24 hours in the range. I expect you to manage your practice time responsibly.”

 

Clint couldn’t help that his hand reflexively tightened around the card as he the explanation sunk in. Since he came in, he’d been restricted to an hour a day on the range, and then only when all recruits were there for the firearms lesson. He’d been spending more time on the machines at the base gym as a result, trying to work off his nervous energy from not being able to settle his mind with range practice.

 

“Also,” Coulson continued, “Before you head to the range you need to swing by R&D. They emailed me that your bow is finally ready. I’m sure you’ll want to test it out and send it back to them a few times before you’re satisfied.”

 

“My bow?” Clint asked in a small voice. No one had said anything about bows and arrows since he got there, unless they were making fun of him. Clint’d been under the impression that he was going to have to settle for a sniper rifle.

 

Coulson simply nodded his head, his smile becoming a little more obvious. “I promised when I brought you in that we’d get you properly outfitted. I realize you don’t know me well yet, but I always keep my promises, Barton.”

 

Clint didn't how he could possibly ever express how grateful he was to Coulson in that moment. All he could manage was an inadequate, “Thanks,” mumbled more to the floor than Coulson.

 

“You’re welcome,” Coulson replied easily. “And happy birthday.”

 

Clint jerked his gaze back up to Coulson at that. Yeah, he knew that kind of thing was in his file, and Coulson probably knew it back to front, and he had a cake with a candle in it on his bedside table, but Clint was still surprised by the sentiment ‘cause no one had wished him a happy birthday since he was a little kid.

 

Coulson tilted his head in the direction of the cake. “I’ll leave you to your celebrating,” he said, turning to head back down the hall.

 

“Wait!” Clint called, stepping out of his room to keep Coulson in his sights. Coulson paused and turned back to him patiently. “Did you, uh, want a slice? I mean, I’m gonna make myself sick if I try to eat it all on my own,” Clint continued uncertainly.

 

Coulson smiled for real just then, and there was an honest to god dimple in his cheek. “I’d love some cake, thank you.”

 

Clint stepped back into his room and waited for Coulson to follow him before closing the door after him and going back to sit on his bed. Coulson pulled the chair back from his desk and swivelled it to face the cake. “Did you make your wish yet?” Coulson asked, nothing teasing in his tone, just curiosity.

 

“Uh, no, I was gonna—and then you knocked, so…” Clint trailed off and brought his hands together in his lap, wringing them together painfully.

 

Coulson reached over to the bedside table and picked up the discarded match book, slipping one out and striking it on the side quickly. He carefully lit the candle then blew out the match. With a quirk to his lips, he started siging softly, and Clint couldn't help but notice that Coulson had a very pleasant voice for all that he sang slightly off-key. “Happy birthday to you. You live in a zoo. You look like a monkey. And you smell like one too.”

 

The laugh that startled from Clint came out with a snort on the end. He eyed Coulson incredulously, but Coulson just motioned for him to blow out the candle. With a wry smirk, Clint closed his eyes and thought about what to wish for.

 

His birthday wish had always been the one thing he’d let himself indulge in selfishly, and this wish was no different. _I wish more of my birthdays could be as nice as this one_. He blew out the candle before opening his eyes and watching the little trail of smoke float away. Coulson nudged the knife Clint had set out on the table towards him, and Clint set about cutting two huge slabs of chocolate cake.

 

-

 

Clint turned twenty-five on a rooftop in Belgrade. He was running surveillance on some big shot arms dealer that SHIELD hadn’t decided if they wanted to flip or assassinate. If not for Coulson surprising him with the odd deadpan joke every few hours, Clint would have taken the decision out of the higher ups hands already. Spending three days with a scope to his eye, watching a criminal fuck prostitutes doggy style didn’t do much to endear the guy to Clint.

 

Clint’d had worse birthdays, no doubt about it, but the heavy rain that let loose a little after midnight did nothing to improve on his current one.

 

By the time Coulson informed him that he was clear to take the guy out, Clint was numb all over. He’d spent years training his body not to fail him no matter the circumstances, though, so Clint flexed his fingers a few times, lined up the shot, and pulled the trigger.

 

He was shivering when he climbed through the safe house’s window shortly after. Coulson turned from his mini-command center in the corner and motioned for Clint to head to the shower. “I’ll have something hot for you to eat when you get out.”

 

Clint kicked off his boots outside the bathroom door and walked straight into the shower. He turned the shower knob all the way to hot and stood under the spray in his rain-drenched clothes. The water was most likely freezing when it first stuttered out of the shower head, but temperature was relative to Clint at that point, so he just bowed his head down to his chest and waited for some sensation to return to his limbs.

 

Once he was warm again, his skin tickled pink from the scorching water, he didn’t want to leave the shower, but he needed to eat something other than the protein bars he’d been subsisting on, so he stripped off his clothes and left them in a dripping pile over the shower drain. He towelled off his hair then cinched the towel around his waist before stepping out to grab dry clothes from his duffel bag in the bedroom.

 

Clint walked back into the apartment’s living room with the towel draped over his head, keeping a little bubble of warm air close around the back of his neck. He sat at the rickety table in front of a heaping bowl of steaming pasta and almost smiled.

 

He called to Coulson in the kitchenette, “Got any forks in there, boss?”

 

“In varying states of cleanliness, yes,” Coulson responded. He rounded the tight corner, dropping a fork in the bowl of noodles and placing a plate of [krofne](http://pinterest.com/pin/80642649548553133/) with a lit candle stuck in the middle pastry down in front of Clint.

 

Clint stared at the powdered pastries and shoved the towel back away from his face. If he’d been one for sentimentality, he would have teared up at the gesture.

 

Coulson slid into the seat across the table and squared his shoulders. With a small smile, he sang out in a deep voice, “ _Данас нам је диван дан, диван дан, диван дан, нашем_ Clint _рођендан, рођендан, рођендан, живео, живео, и сретан нам био, живео, живео, и сретан нам био!”_

 

Clint’s shoulders hunched forward as he laughed. Grinning giddily, he leant down to blow out the candle. “Did you just serenade me in Serbian? I'm guessing that was some form of _Happy Birthday_?” he asked incredulously, reaching up to swipe his finger through the powdered sugar sprinkled around the rim of the plate and then lick it clean.

 

Coulson lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Google may have been involved.”

 

Clint shook his head and popped a whole krofne into his mouth, still grinning.

 

-

 

Nothing Coulson could do would have made Clint’s next birthday a good one. Except maybe wake up. Waking up would have been good, but at the same time, Clint knew Coulson would be in too much pain and the doctors would just put him under again.

 

So Clint spent his birthday in medical, watching Coulson’s heart monitor and distracting himself by trying to match his heart rate to the steady beeps. He tried to not think about anything, but thinking about nothing was a lot harder than it sounded, which Clint knew all too well from long days spent in a sniper’s nest holding one position and keeping quiet.

 

Clint had tricks for those times. Sometimes he’d take the last few movies he’d seen and splice the plots together in his head to make a clusterfuck of epic action. Other times he'd pick someone at SHIELD and review everything he’d ever observed or heard about that person, updating his own mental dossiers.

 

But all Clint could think about sitting next to his comatose handler, when he allowed himself to think about anything, was that Coulson was in medical because Clint wasn’t in Rio to watch his back. Clint knew he was overthinking it. It's not his fault that he wasn’t put on the mission. Nothing in their intel suggested that a sniper lookout would have been necessary.

 

If he had been there, there’s no guarantee that Clint would have even spotted the sniper that shot Coulson’s contacts and put a bullet through Coulson’s right shoulder and another in his leg. The other agents with Coulson certainly hadn’t noticed anything amok until the shit had already hit the fan.

 

Clint would have damn well laid down some cover fire as soon as that first shot rang out, though. If he’d been there, things would have still gone bad, but not _as bad_. And that was the kind of thing that Clint needed to stop thinking about because he couldn’t do anything about it other than sit in a shitty plastic chair and wait for Coulson to wake up.

 

 

 

Two days later, Clint was still sitting in the same chair. He hadn’t slept, but he’d eaten some food that the nurses dropped off for him. His thoughts were starting to drift in that hazy way they did when he was about to collapse from exhaustion, but he held out with a streak a determined stubbornness.

 

He’d sleep as soon as Coulson woke up. Which, thinking about it, didn’t make much sense because he wanted Coulson to wake up so that he could talk to him and make sure Coulson didn’t blame him for not being there on the mission to stop him from getting shot.

 

Clint blinked, and it seemed to take a very long moment for his eyes to open again. He closed his eyes with a sigh, just to give them a rest because he’d been staring at a white wall for hours and his eyes felt raw and dry. He startled back to awareness when the heart monitor, which had kept a fairly steady beat in the background of all Clint’s thoughts, picked up rapidly in pace.

 

Coulson was squinting from the bright overhead lights, trying to take stock of his surroundings judging by the way his eyes were darting into every corner of the room. He focused on Clint, and that seemed to calm him some. He opened his mouth to say something, but there was a breathing mask in his way, and that made him furrow his brow in frustration.

 

Clint sat stunned for a moment, shocked that Coulson’s usual unreadable façade had fallen in the wake of gunshot wounds and a steady stream of morphine. But then he scooted to the edge of his seat and pulled the mask down to Coulson’s chin so he could speak.

 

“You okay?” Coulson rasped. Clint stood on legs shaky from disuse and poured a glass of water for Coulson to give himself time to formulate an answer and work out how to express it with some expected level of sass.

 

While Coulson sipped slowly through a straw, Clint cleared his throat a few too many times. “I’m not the one laid up in medical,” he finally managed.

 

“You don’t look so good,” Coulson explained hoarsely.

 

“You look worse.”

 

“No doubt. What happened?”

 

“You were on a mission in Rio di Janero. You got shot.”

 

“Informative sit-rep, as always, Barton.” This was where, in their usual exchange of banter, Coulson’s mouth would twitch in an aborted smile. But doped up on heavy medication, Coulson outright smiled.

 

It was an adorably goofy grin that Clint wanted to appreciate in all it’s glory, but he was half convinced that the exhaustion was inducing hallucinations because Coulson had no right to look that cute with a blood-stained bandage wrapped around his upper torso.

 

And Clint was meant to smirk at this point, maybe deliver some smartass remark, but he felt incapable of emoting much of anything right then, and he didn't rise to the bate. Coulson licked his lips and looked around the small room again. Clint didn’t have anything to say other than questions he didn’t want to ask but needed to hear the answers to, so he stayed quiet and slumped down in his chair.

 

Then Coulson jerked forward a bit before grimacing in pain and falling back to the bed. “Shit,” he mumbled. Clint rose to call for a nurse, but Coulson stopped him with a look.

 

“I’m fine. Or well, I will be,” Coulson muttered. “Calm down.”

 

“You first, sir.”

 

Coulson gave him a sad smile. “I missed your birthday,” he said apologetically.

 

“Yeah," Clint scoffed, "You should really try to plan when you’re going to shot so it happens at a more convenient time.”

 

Clint was a bit disturbed that Coulson seemed to be taking that comment under consideration. “Did you get your cake?” Coulson asked after another minute of awkward silence.

 

“Nah. The desserts at mess here always look questionable.”

 

“You should go get one and bring it back here," Coulson encouraged with a hopeful look on his face that Clint was ill-equipped to handle. "I’ve got a good song for you this year.”

 

“Yeah?” Clint asked weakly.

 

Coulson grinned again and started to sing in a scratchy but cheerful voice. “Happy happy birthday, happy birthday cake! Happy happy birthday, pin the tail on the seahorse! Happy happy birthday, happy birthday Clint!”

 

Clint chuckled. “You’re throwing Spongebob at me now?”

 

“Thought you’d appreciate some diversity.”

 

“Go to sleep, sir," Clint ordered, shaking his head as he stood. "I’m gonna go get that cake. You want pineapple upside down? To go with your Spongebob theme?”

 

Coulson hummed contentedly and settled back against his starch white pillows. "And coconut," he muttered. 

 

-

 

The next year, Clint found himself overly nervous about his approaching birthday. Coulson’d wrangled his way into Clint’s birthday tradition back when he was new to SHIELF, and Clint was a-okay with that. But it wasn't just Clint and Coulson anymore. They had Nat on their team now too.

 

And Clint loved Natasha. She was awesome and scary and super badass. Clint-and-Coulson were always a seamless team, but Clint-and-Coulson-and-Nat was one badass motherfucking team. She was like Clint’s sister, or his best friend, or something else that denoted a close, meaningful bond, even if she denied it whenever he brought it up and twisted his arm behind his back until he cried uncle.

 

But he didn’t want Nat to become part of his birthday thing. He was fine with inviting her into every other bit of his life, but that he wanted to keep just between him and Coulson. That one day a year was  _his,_ and Coulson somehow always managed to make his birthday one worth remembering. It may have been selfish, but Clint didn’t care because they shared desserts, and he made a wish, and Coulson sang to him and called him Clint instead of Specialist or Barton.

 

There were too many thoughts crowding around in Clint’s head, so by the time the clock ticked over from June 17th to June 18th, he was on the range, firing arrow after arrow and arranging them into cartoon caricatures on the target sheets.

 

Coulson joined him around two in the morning. He brought a briefcase full of paperwork and a pink pastry box from a bakery. Clint didn’t pause from his routine of nock, aim, release, and Coulson seemed content to set up on a bench and work through mission reports.

 

Clint finally stopped when he ran out of pictures to recreate. The muscles in his arms burned, but Clint’d always found that to be a pleasant reminder that he could push his body to ridiculous limits and still keep going if he absolutely had to. He went over to join Coulson at his bench, resting back against the wall and slowly stretching and then relaxing his taxed muscles.

 

Coulson finished up with a report and then stuffed the paperwork back into his briefcase. He pulled the top off the bakery box and Clint was inordinately happy when Coulson revealled only two giant chocolate cupcakes. Clint grabbed one with a grin and held it out expectantly until, with a fondly annoyed look, Coulson pulled a candle and lighter from his inner suit pocket.

 

“What have you got for me this year, boss?” Clint bounced his knee idly as he watched the candle wick flame to life.

 

“Don't I get a drumroll first?” Coulson teased. Clint eagerly stomped his feet against the concrete floor of the range, and the sound echoed through the empty room. Coulson tried to hold back a laugh and it instead came out as a snort. Taking a deep breath, he started to tap his foot in beat and then began, “They say it’s your birthday. Well, it’s my birthday too, yeah. They say it’s your birthday. We’re gonna have a good time. I’m glad it’s your birthday. Happy birthday to you!”

 

Clint sat up and bumped his shoulder against Coulson’s. “Good choice.”

 

Coulson elbowed him back in the ribs. “I figured it’s hard to go wrong with the Beatles.”

 

Clint found himself smiling down at his cupcake and watching a drop of wax slide down the purple candle until Coulson nudged him again. “Blow it out already, or I’m stealing your wish.”

 

Clint eyed Coulson skeptically. “Good luck with that.” Coulson leaned forward with his lips pursed, and Clint jumped to his feet, easily saving his candle. He savored the moment for another two count and then blew out the candle.

 

-

 

Clint’s 28th birthday was the closest thing to a normal birthday he was ever likely to have. He and Coulson were heading back from New Mexico and one of the oddest missions he’d ever encountered at SHIELD, taking their time meandering down little used highways instead of the major interstates because, as Clint insisted, Coulson more than deserved the break and it was Clint’s birthday so they were meant to be celebrating anyway.

 

They stopped at a small town diner for lunch and got an apple pie to go when Coulson refused to present Clint with his birthday song with the town’s Midwestern residents already watching them warily. They found a small park not far down the road and sat at a picnic table partially shaded by the overhanging branches of a tree.

 

Clint stuck the proffered purple candle into the middle of the pie and rubbed his hands together gleefully as Coulson lit it. He banged his fists against the rough wooden table, chanting for his song like a kid chants for ice cream until Coulson levelled him with a heated look from under lowered lashes.

 

Clint’s train of thought derailed and he found himself at a loss, wondering what the look was for because yes, they flirted, everyone knew they were nearly always flirting with one another, but neither of them had ever taken it further than that.

 

When Coulson started to sing, it was in a low, sultry voice, more serious than he’d ever sung to Clint before. “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday Mr. Specialist. Happy birthday to you.”

 

Clint swallowed audibly and mentally ordered his eyes not to even think about blinking because the look in Coulson's eyes was something he would never forgive himself for missing even a single nanosecond of.

 

“Thanks, Mr. Specialist, for all the things you’ve done,” Coulson continued. “The battles that you’ve won. The way you deal with us at SHIELD, and our problems by the ton. We thank you so much. Everybody, happy birthday.”

 

Coulson’s eyes flicked down to the candle sitting in the pie, and Clint leaned across the table to blow it out, his eyes slipping closed as he wished more fervently than he’d ever wished before, the same wish he'd made every year since he met Coulson: _I wish more of my birthdays could be as nice as this one_.

 

And then there were lips pressed against his own and Clint couldn’t bring himself to care if he never had another happy birthday after this one because it was the kind of day he felt his whole life had been leading up to. It was his birthday. He was happy. End of story.

 

-

 

Clint started making plans for his 29th birthday sometime around Christmas. It was like a sexy bucket list of things that must all be accomplished within a day. He would wake up to morning sex. There would be a ban on clothes for the whole day. Naked cake-baking would occur sometime around lunch. He would make Phil reprise every song he’d ever sung to him on his birthday in addition to whatever new song he had planned. They would shower together then have slippery sex against the shower wall and shower again. They would marathon some reality show. Clint was leaning towards _Project Runway_ , mostly because Phil’s running commentary through any episode was harshly hilarious.

 

Clint was honestly looking forward to his birthday for once in his life, actively counting down the days, and then a god stepped through a portal from space and fucked up everything Clint cared about.

 

A little over a month after the Battle of New York, Clint turned twenty-nine and didn’t get to check a single thing off his birthday bucket list because everything on it included Phil and Phil was dead so none of it mattered anymore.

 

Clint rented a room in a sketchy motel and headed to the nearest liquor store, instead. He didn't buy a cake or a doughnut or a cupcake or a pie. He spent an exorbitant amount on liquor in fancy bottles and conceded to his usual tradition only enough to grab a bottle of Birthday Cake Smirnoff.

 

He spent the day alternating bottles of booze because they all tasted horrible but he kept hoping the next one would taste a little better compared to the last. Sometime in the evening, his phone started to buzz on the bed next to him, and Clint stared at it in confusion. The number was unlisted, which should have been pretty impossible since it was a swanky Stark phone. It could be Nat, though, he thought.

 

They’d never done anything together for his birthday, obviously, as that’d always been a day for him and Phil. But Natasha did slip silly postcards into his gym locker with happy birthday written in strange languages. Last year she went with Klingon. Clint wasn’t aware she even knew what Klingon was.

 

She may have decided to call him instead, he reasoned. Seeing as there was no Phil to spend the day with and she was away on a mission and therefore not around to slip a postcard in his locker. By the time he worked that out, though, the phone had stopped vibrating and displayed a missed call alert.

 

Clint was debating the merits of hitting redial when the phone started up again, still from Unlisted.

 

Clint had to try more than once to hit the spot of the touchscreen to answer it, and when he managed it, he slurred, “Hello?”

 

The person calling him didn’t return a similar greeting, he simply began to sing. “Thought I’d drop a line to say, that I wish this happy day, would find me beside you. Happy, happy birthday baby. I’ll always call you my baby. Seems like years ago that we met. On a day I can’t forget, ‘cause that’s when we fell in love.”

 

Clint managed to choke out, “Phil—” before the line disconnected. Clint spent far too long staring at his phone and the bottles of liquor scattered across the itchy green comforter, alternately convincing himself that it had been Phil—he’s alive, he’s alive, _he’s alive_ —and that it was all an alcohol-induced dream.

 

He needed to know if that was really Phil. He needed to trace the call. Unfortunately, Clint’s usual resources for tracing mysterious phone calls all involved SHIELD techs when Nat was away on a mission and Phil was busy being dead.

 

Clint swayed to his feet, grasping his cell too tightly like it could keep him balanced, and made for the door to stagger down the street until he could flag down a cab. Luckily, he’d recently made the acquaintance of a tech genius with a wicked AI for a BFF, and they were both not-so-secretly fond of one Agent.

**Author's Note:**

> The songs referred to for anyone who might be interested:
> 
>  
> 
> [Spongebob Squarepants Birthday Song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VqRdpltPB8)  
> [The Beatles' _Birthday_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHRMX9Brq0s)  
> [Marilyn Monroe's _Happy Birthday Mr. President_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4SLSlSmW74)  
> [Dolly Parton's _Happy, Happy Birthday Baby_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5kHC39F7to)


End file.
